New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music is a traveling Smithsonian exhibit that explores Americans' creative expression through music - music known by names likes blues, country western, folk ballads, and gospel. Developed as part of the Museum on Main Street program, New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music is designed especially for small museums and rural audiences that lack regular access to traveling exhibitions. New Harmonies has been made possible in South Carolina by The Humanities Council SC.

The Library facility at 311 Scott Street will be hosting musical performers and the BDC will be mounting a display of some of the music resources we hold to add a local component to the Smithsonian traveling exhibit, expected to get here in 2011. The exhibit schedule has not yet been finalized. More information will come as we learn more. We are so excited by the award, we could not wait to share the good news!

Grace Cordial has been responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Beaufort District Collection at the Beaufort County Library since 1999. The Beaufort District Collection exists to acquire, preserve, maintain and make accessible a research collection of permanent value which records the history, culture, and environment of our part of the South Carolina lowcountry. Besides the research room, Cordial manages the “Virtual BDC:” the BDC web pages, the Online Obituary Index, two digital collections, a new BDC.BCL Facebook page, and the Connections blog.

Among her duties is to coordinate or present programs about local history, Gullah culture, and our coastal environment, including occasional instructional sessions about how to perform historical and/or genealogical research.